Date Published: 30/03/2020
ARCHIVED - Second additional morgue planned in the unused Ciudad de la Justicia in Madrid
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The unopened forensics institute was conceived built at a cost of millions
Following the decision last week to convert the Palacio de Hielo ice rink in Madrid into a temporary morgue in order to deal with the large numbers of fatalities in the national capital related to Covid-19, the regional government is now planning a second impromptu mortuary in the unopened “Ciudad de la Justicia”, a building popularly known as “El Dónut” (the doughnut) due to its unusual design.
Located in the Valdebebas district in the north of Madrid, the building was intended to house the Anatomic Forensics Institute within the Ciudad de la Justicia, a complex for which approval was given in 2005, but so far it is the only one of the 12 projected structures to have been completed. A judicial investigation into the possible misuse of 105 million euros of public funds is currently under way related to the collapse of the project, in which a total of 130 million euros were invested.
The forensics institute contains 205 niches but it is reported that only around 160 of them are able to be used, despite work over the last few days to make as many of them as possible serviceable and to repair the cooling systems in the building. This work has been undertaken in anticipation of the Palacio de Hielo proving insufficient for the growing number of deaths in Madrid: the coronavirus has already claimed more than 2,400 lives in the region and already the services of crematoria in other regions are being used, some of them as far as 400 kilometres away.
Image: Google Street View
On Monday the death toll nationwide rose to 7,340.
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